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The Steel Erector's Playbook | Issue #6
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In 2010 we were owed more than $500,000.
We collected about half of it. It took over a year to get that.
Every Wednesday the pizza place near my house ran buy one, get one for five bucks. Guess who walked out of there with two pizzas every Wednesday for months.
I remember that better than I remember the numbers. That, and sitting in the truck in my own driveway with the engine off. Not going in yet. Running the same math on the windshield in the dark, hoping it came out different the second time.
Nobody knew. Not the crew. Not the GCs. My wife knew something was wrong. She didn't know all of it.
That's the part of this business nobody writes about.
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I'm writing this because of something I'm helping build. It's called The Honest Builders — a peer-support platform for guys in the trades. I'm one of the founders.
Sitting in those conversations put words to something I've carried for twenty-one years and never named out loud.
That's the only reason it's in here. No pitch today. Just telling you where this came from.
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Everyone watches the crew. Nobody watches the owner.
Every mental health article written for construction says the same thing. Look out for your guys. Watch for the changes. Ask twice.
Good advice. But you're not the guy they're writing about. You're the one carrying it.
Here's what most guys miss — the owner has fewer places to go than anybody on his payroll.
An ironworker having a bad month has a crew around him. Guys who notice. A steward. A business agent. A foreman who'll pull him aside.
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The three doors that are closed to you
Your crew. You can't tell them. The day your foreman thinks you're rattled, the whole job changes. So you walk the site like everything's fine, because everything has to look fine.
Your competitors. They're the only people alive who understand your job exactly. They're also the last people you'd ever tell.
Your family. Some of it goes there. It should. But your wife didn't sign up to be the only person on earth who knows how bad the receivables are. Putting all of it on her isn't honesty — it's weight transfer.
That's not a personality flaw. That's the structure of the job. You built a business where you're the one who absorbs things, and then you did it so well that nobody thinks to check on you.
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The numbers, plainly
In 2021, construction had the second-highest suicide rate of any industry in the country. Fifty-six per 100,000 male workers, against 32 across all industries. Only mining was higher. That's from the CDC's report on suicide rates by industry, published in 2023.
Fifty-six against 32 is about 75% higher than the average working man.
I'm not putting that here to shake anybody up. I'm putting it here because it's the industry we all chose, and most guys in it have never seen the number once.
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What actually helps
Not necessarily a therapist. Not a book. Not another podcast.
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A room of guys in the same boat, meeting regularly, telling the truth.
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That's the whole thing. Peer support does something an expert can't do — nobody in that room is explaining your life to you. They're living the same one.
If you want to build one, keep it simple:
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Three to five people. More than that and nobody talks.
Same size company, different market. Owners who get the problems but aren't bidding against you.
Nobody selling anything. No vendors, no bankers, no insurance guys.
Same time every month. Put it on the calendar like a pour date.
What's said there stays there. Say that out loud the first meeting.
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You already know four guys who'd say yes to this. Text one of them this week.
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Systems beat hustle. I write that every week.
I write it because in 2010 I lost nearly everything I'd built. I held on by a string and put it back together one steel beam at a time.
And I didn't tell a single person while it was happening.
Documentation protects your money. Having somebody to call protects you.
— Dino
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P.S. If you're in a bad place right now, call or text 988. That's the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Free, 24/7. It's for people in crisis and it's for people who just aren't okay. There's no shame in using it.
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The Steel Erector's Playbook — one field-tested system per week to protect profit, reduce chaos, and build a business that runs without you.
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